Last month, the second contest was judged and we were pleased to see an increase in the number of entries from the year before.

Entries were received from Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut, producing nine state winners, and the two best overall New England winners.

The contest has a senior division, grades 9-12, and a junior division, grades 6-8, and is open to all New England schools.

Thinking back to my own childhood, I wish I had the opportunity to enter an outdoor writing contest.

One of my ambitions was to work for a magazine such as Field and Stream, but I didn’t have a clue of how to go about achieving my goal.

My interest in hunting and fishing started at a young age and I enjoyed photographing, sketching and painting what I saw outdoors. I also wrote about my adventures, with hopes of being published someday.

My sporting friends enjoyed my stories, but the majority of my schoolteachers showed little interest in what I was writing, especially if it was about hunting.

I sent a few pieces, unsolicited, to magazines such as Outdoor Life and Fur, Fish and Game, but none got accepted.

When it came time for college, I went to art school, where I studied advertising design, painting and photography for 21/2 years before dropping out to spend more time hunting and fishing. I continued to paint and do photography, but didn’t have much luck selling anything or getting a job in the art field.

I could strum a guitar, though, and also had a truck-driving license, so I played with a rock n’ roll band on the weekends and did miscellaneous jobs during the week including truck driving. That combination left a fair amount of time for outdoor activities and painting.

My life changed at 30 when I entered and won the Massachusetts waterfowl stamp contest.

The resulting publicity led to speaking engagements about art, decoys and a variety of outdoor subjects. I also started writing again and was soon asked to write this column for The Enterprise.

Those experiences are one of the reasons I’m enthusiastic about NEOWA’s youth writing contest, and I’m confident we will be awarding prizes to kids who will go on to make communications their career.

In today’s hectic, fast-paced world, along with what the experts are calling nature deprivation, this competition offers interested youngsters an outlet to tell the stories of what they see and experience in the outdoors.

This year’s winning essay for the New England Senior Division was written by Emma Dailey, an 11th grader from Poultney High School, Poultney, Vt. She was also the Vermont State Senior winner for her essay, “Falcon, Up Close and Personal.” She will be awarded prizes totaling $275 and a NEOWA certificate.

Page 2 of 2 - In the Junior division, the winning New England essay, “Walking in a Bog,” was written by Rebecca Anacheka-Nasemann, a sixth grader, home-schooled in Hudson, Ma. She was also the Junior At-Large winner and will be awarded prizes totaling $275 and a NEOWA certificate. Both New England winning essays will be published in the Northwoods Sporting Journal. There were also nine other winners in the contest who each received a $125 cash prize.

The New England Outdoor Writers Association is a group of professional outdoor communicators dedicated to promoting and supporting conservation, natural resources and our outdoor heritage. NEOWA, formed in 1942, is the oldest regional outdoor writers organization in America and is a nonprofit, professional and educational organization.

Rules for the 2015 NEOWA Youth Outdoor Writing Contest are posted at www.neowa.org.

For more information, contact Dr. Hal Lyon at halclyon@yahoo.com or 603-520-1214.